VIGAN CITY – Farmers from the El Niño-hit provinces of Isabela and Cagayan were able to double their income and increase their yields by an average of 200 percent despite the dry spell by planting hybrid palay seeds during the dry season, Director Frisco Malabanan of the Ginintuang Masaganang Ani (GMA) Rice Program of the Department of Agriculture (DA) said.

Malabanan disclosed that the 68 farmer-beneficiaries, who received the Department’s hybrid rice technology demonstration project, harvested an average of 164 sacks of palay per hectare (dry weight), which is equivalent to 8.86 metric tons per hectare (MT/ha) at 50 to 54 kilograms per sack.

"Several farmers yielded as high as 253 sacks per hectare or 13.68 MT/hectare using various hybrids such as SL-8H, Jolly Rice, Bigante, Mestizo 1, PHB 71, and Rizalina 333,” he said in his report to DA Secretary Bernie Fondevilla.

The harvests are much higher than the farmers’ usual output of 3-4 MT/ha using inbred rice varieties, Malabanan said.

“This translates into an increase in profit of at least P30,000 per hectare from only P15,000. Hybrid rice achieves greater yields; thus, farmers earn more without increasing their cultivation area,” Malabanan said.

Latest figures submitted to the GMA Rice Program show that 126,645 hectares were planted to hybrid rice during the 2010 dry season.

For the regular 2010 wet cropping season, the Program targets 96,888 hectares to be planted to hybrid rice, Malabanan said.